There has been a movement in recent years to privatize access to space and space transportation systems and develop commercial space systems. In this regard, various privately owned commercial systems have been proposed for implementation with the NSTS Orbiter. Most recently, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has also decided to relinquish control of NSTS operations to a coalition of private companies called the United Space Alliance.
One such successful implementation of a commercial space venture was the successful development of the SPACEHAB module by SPACEHAB Inc. The SPACEHAB module, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,867,395, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference, includes flat end caps and a flat top panel that permit useful payload items to be attached to the outside of the module in addition to being carried within the module. The SPACEHAB module can be readily co-manifested with other payloads within the cargo bay of the NSTS Orbiter and has been successfully flown on several missions. In order to increase the pressurized volume of the basic SPACEHAB module, it has been recently proposed to couple one or more of the basic modules together to form a variable length mission-configurable module, as described in co-pending and commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/401,353, now U.s. Pat. No. 5,806,799, to carry cargo required to facilities in highly inclined orbits such as the Mir space station or the planned International Space Station Alpha.
One current drawback to offering commercial access to space via privately owned and operated modules within the cargo bay of the NSTS Orbiter, is the inability of commercial customers to maintain constant direct communicate with payload elements and/or their own mission specialists working within the module, due to the inherent limitations of communicating through the NSTS Orbiter primary communications system. It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a universal communication system that will provide dedicated and independent communications capability to NSTS payload elements.